The Turnout Factor

Between the 2006 and 2008 elections, nearly one million people tuned out of federal politics. You won't hear any of the parties boasting about this, but all three of the major national parties -- the New Democrats, the Liberals and yes, even the Conservatives, lost voters. 

 Stark numbers, in terms of total ballots cast: 

2006: 14,908,703 or 64.7 per cent of eligible ballots

2008: 13,929,093, or 58.8 per cent of eligible ballots 

 

Liberals were, by far, the biggest losers in this decline, seeing their total vote drop by 846,230 votes, or 18 per cent. 

Conservatives and New Democrats, on the other hand, lost only around 3 per cent of their total votes.  

What does this mean in terms of an election campaign that could come as soon as this week? 

For the Liberals, it means persuading people that voting matters -- apathy is as big an enemy for the party as the Conservatives are. When you lose nearly a million ballots between elections, not to other parties, but merely to a shrug, your  biggest task is to shake support off the couches of the nation. The Conservatives and the New Democrats need an engaged electorate simply to make gains, but both parties are more focused, strategically, on the specific ridings -- even the specific polls, I'm told -- where they need folks to show up at the ballot box. 

One million votes can make a huge difference and in close races, defining differences. It's worth remembering that Julian Fantino only won the Vaughan by-election late last year with less than 1,000 votes over his Liberal rival. Anyone who was watching CPAC's live-camera coverage of Fantino's campaign headquarters on by-election night (I admit it: I was one of them) could see those bitten nails. If that's a portent of how a general election works, watch for all parties to be paying close attention to the turnout factor. 

Comments

[erik snyder]

Getting the vote out is imperative in the next election. Of the demographics unrepresented in the last election, the youth vote was chief amongst them. Harper is a danger to all democratic practices in Canada and perhaps that sounds a bit heady but Canadians need to remember that we are smarter than Harper would like us to believe.

[Rod Croskery]

Dr. Robert Altemeyer's book The Authoritarians offers a useful background to this. I used his work in a piece on the corrosive effect of attack ads during the current election campaign.

http://rodcroskery.wordpress.com

[John Tyler]

Not voting is a strong political statement in the age of per vote subsidies.

The one million Canadians who chose not to vote in the 2008 election lowered the annual deficit by $2 million a year for the past 3 years. Call it 'democracy inaction'.

If any party was serious about wanting to increase the impact that individuals can have in this country's politics they would advocate for increasing the per vote subsidy - dramatically. In addition to increasing the value for the parties of each vote they are able to garner, it would also provide motivation for NDP supporters in Calgary or Conservative supporters in Abitibi to get out and vote in a riding they know their party will never win. And it would make all parties work much harder to make themselves relevant to Canadians in order to ensure all get out to vote.